ABSTRACT
The seventeenth century is unique in British history. The causes of the civil wars, which began in Scotland in 1638 and encompassed the three kingdoms from 1642 to 1648, the experiment with republican government from 1649 to 1660 and the second revolution of 1688–89, were both long and short term, structural and personal. The seventeenth century is the period in which the constitutional system which had developed haphazardly over the centuries was tested to destruction. Monarchs in later medieval and Tudor periods, though accorded and according themselves semi-sacred status – the peculiar mystique of an anointed king – recognised the realities of their position. James I suffers in reputation from following Elizabeth I. His reign frequently seems a lacklustre interlude between the triumphs of her time and the dramatic events of his son’s. James was perhaps the most intellectually gifted monarch to sit on a British throne.
